September Update from the President

I first met Jim Page in 1992, when he taught the legal portion of the NAEMSP Medical Director’s Course and Practicum that I attended while I was a resident. Over the years, I had many opportunities to get to know him better, including when he drove his restored “Rescue 11” – a 1947 Ford panel wagon – across the country to speak at the Pennsylvania State EMS Conference. This vehicle is on display in the L.A. County Fire Museum along with Squad 51 and Engine 51 from the TV show.

After Emergency!, Jim moved on to become the state EMS director for North Carolina. He then founded JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services) Magazine where his editorials and the magazine’s articles educated EMS practitioners across the country. Jim had a keen sense for the future direction of EMS. With my interest in EMS safety, I remember his editorial entitled “For Whom the Siren Oinks” in which he was an early critic of the dangerous overuse of lights and siren. Under James Page, JEMS also sponsored a successful annual educational conference and trade show. About five years before his death, one of Jim’s last partnerships was joining Doug Wolfberg and Steve Wirth in the formation of Page, Wolfberg, and Wirth, LLC, a national EMS, ambulance and medical transportation industry law firm.

Jim was born on August 7, 1936, and last month’s documentary screening was timed to be on the date of what would have been his 90^th birthday. He died on September 4, 2004, and Winnie Maggiorie, JD provided a video recording of his last presentation at the University of New Mexico paramedic graduation a few months before his death. I recently watched that video. In his baritone voice, Jim described the history of EMS care – from the resuscitator devices and back-pressure-arm-lift methods of resuscitation used in the 1950s, to the discovery of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth ventilation in 1960, to the era of Emergency! in the 1970s. When Emergency! aired in 1972, there were only a couple dozen ALS ambulances in the United States, and by the time of the final show in 1979, most of the U.S. population lived within 20 miles of an ALS ambulance.

Jim was an incredible orator and watching him present the history of paramedicine to a graduating group of New Mexico paramedics shortly before his death was very melancholy for me. So much history. So many memories of Jim. In my lifetime, I have encountered two individuals who were bigger than life yet made you feel like you were the most important person in the room when they met you. Two people who remembered you from your first encounter when they met you a second time years later. Two people who remembered the little personal facts about your interests and career from that previous conversation. The two people with this special gift were James O. Page and Ronald D. Stewart, and the together histories were linked together as consultants to the TV show Emergency!

Photo: Inside the compartment of Squad 51 are equipment boxes used in the TV show emergency. The inside panel of each door has signatures of many of the actors and leaders of the show, including physician leaders like Dr. Ron Stewart, Dr. Eugene Nagel, Dr. Michael Criley, and Dr. Bill Koenig.